Friday Focus - March 23, 2018

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for this week!!!  You all have done so many things do inspire our students to dream big this week! I've seen college pennants, graduation caps, resumes, job applications, career goals and I believe we've had over 20 people speak to classes about their career/college journey. We even had one parent share their journey of NOT graduating from High School and told how hard it is to get a GED now to motivate the class to focus on graduating.  I have also heard kids having conversations with each other about their college/career goals in the hallways, at lunch and at recess.  Kids don't have these conversations on their own without being inspired and you all knocked it out of the park this week!!!

Upcoming Events:
Today: Last day of the quarter (Wow, that came fast!!)
2:30 State Run for middle school Forensics (this will also replace our typical Friday Celebration announcements)

Spring Break: Rest up! Seriously...I don't want to see any of you in the building. Enjoy the week, read a good book, go on vacation, relax! Rejuvenate for the final quarter sprint of the year!

Monday, April 2: 7:30 report card grades are due (remember, do not use * for grades).
Optional EP Documentation Log work session 3:15 in IMC

Wednesday, April 4 report cards to be distributed
Elementary Staff meeting 3:10

Friday, April 6 -If you'd like to support The Gathering Source, this evening is their "Spring to Action" Fundraiser at the Juneau Community Center. You can find the details for this event here: https://thegatheringsource.org/calendar/spring-to-action/

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes: Make sure to add in time to your lesson plans/schedule for class community building. Remember Greg Wolcott's Signficant 72? "The foundation of every great classroom is build upon strong relationships."  
Even though they've been with you for 3 quarters now, I'm sure you know you'll still need to rehearse some procedures again, because they'll likely come back out of the routine and excited for spring.

For Recess, Mr. Lange and I ask of you to make sure to spread out/circulate on recess duty. Now that the piles of snow are gone, our students are spread out, so we need to also.  Move/Scan/Interact is always a good process to follow on duty to ensure active supervision and prevent any possible recess issues so they can all return to your classrooms calm and ready to learn.

Friday Focus - March 16, 2018

March Madness is here!!! I've already seen some preparation for next week at different grade levels...wow, you're ahead of the game! Thank you for your work to help be the dream managers for our students. We know that many of our students do not have family encouraging them to dream big, talk about graduation or college so for many of our students...we are their only source of inspiration! And we know that no matter where students come from, they can dream big and achieve their goals!
Our students have already been excited to see the map in the commons (our 5th grade US experts even noticed a few states missing!) that currently has the NCAA colleges identified for the March Madness bracket. Next week they will see where you all went to college (from the survey you submitted to me)!

Upcoming Events:
Today (Friday): Graduation year pictures in the middle school gym
12:55-1:10 K 1:15-1:30 1 1:35-1:50 2 1:55-2:10 3 2:15-2:30 4 2:35-2:50 5

All week---you get to wear jeans if you talk about college. Bonus points of inspiration while wearing college shirts (and they don't have to match the color days)!

Monday -

*March Madness Kick-off assembly starting at 9am in the elementary gym. (This will only be 15 minutes to get 5K out to their 9:15 recess)

*Consumable Supply orders due

Tuesday -

Wednesday -

Thursday -

Friday -

Other March Madness details: 

• Tuesday - Friday there will be a Kahoot or other Google presentation scavenger hunt to have your students do in the class. It will have to do with the colleges associated with the color of the day and may possibly include where staff went to college.  The ACP committee will share details of this by the weekend with you. 
• There are MANY parents scheduled to talk to classes next week about their career/college.  Some went through me to schedule, but I know several went straight to you to schedule. Please Please Please take a picture to share with me and let me know who comes in. I want to send each parent a thank you and have a slideshow of pictures to share at the end of the week.  Thank you!!!

Friday Focus - March 9, 2018

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*In a class read-aloud, the teacher invited the class expert on the Spanish language to join her in reading the book to the class, because he could fluently read the parts that were in Spanish and tell the class what it meant. What an incredible way to build a classroom community that recognizes and appreciates one another's strengths!
*2nd graders were able to give their peers a book recommendation that included the main character, main events (without spoiling the ending) and the book's life lesson. I was SO impressed with what these 2nd graders were identifying as the book's life lesson all on their own. Wow!
*After reading about an event in history, students were given about 10 minutes with a partner to make a quick comic book sketch with talking bubbles to retell what happened. This was such an engaging way for students to process what they had read and then retell when they shared with another set of partners. I also noticed some gave feedback to others about what they forgot and then they added in details.


Events Next Week:

Monday/Tuesday - I will be gone at a conference
Wednesday - 7:30AM optional meeting/support time for 3-5th gr classroom teachers regarding Forward test prep materials (see previous email sent out)

*Sometime next week will be grade level graduation year pictures. (Sorry I don't have this yet!)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*I know everyone is getting excited for Spring break...both you and the students!! Let's try to remember to keep things as normal as possible to keep the students as normal as possible.  If you are counting down the days, then they probably will too and it may result in undesirable behavior and attention in the classroom.

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*It's All in the Small - a great reminder that we are making a difference and sometimes we don't notice how far they've come, and sometimes THEY don't know either!!!

Friday Focus - March 2, 2018

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

• Students excited about extra time to read during blizzards. I can't tell you how many students asked me for more blizzards to read more! Music to my ears!  I'm so excited about the passionate readers we are creating together at Dodgeland!
• We didn't have a huge turnout at our reading night, but we had a number of students who stayed after to help with cleaning up. They were not asked...they just started helping on their own! It is great to see students who feel like this is their home and take care of it!
• You may have seen at recess duty that Mr. Lange has been getting our K-2 kiddos going on the swings and working on learning to pump. I couldn't help but notice that after a couple of days of him helping students, we had a number of students also out there helping to push other kids on the swings. What we model, students mirror!

Events Next Week:

Tuesday - rescheduled 5-12th grade Bandorama concert

Wednesday - Staff Mtg 3:10

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*Wednesday's staff meeting will likely be about 40 minutes to include: continued discussion on our mantra/collective commitments and technology information from Kay and Brad. 

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*Every Class Needs Read Alouds